Olwethu Xabanisa
Sentencing proceedings in the Sibongile Mani theft trial have been postponed to the 29th of March in the East London Magistrate's Court.
The court postponed the matter on Tuesday to allow for the submission of a probation officer's report for the purposes of pre-sentencing.
The 31-year-old Walter Sisulu University (WSU) accounting student was found guilty on all ten theft charges against her last month.
She was convicted for spending more than R800 000 of National Student Financial Aid (NSFAS) money that did not belong to her.
The court heard that Mani blew the money over a period of 73 days on alcohol, appliances, furniture, beauty products, data and other items before being arrested by the Hawks in 2018.
Just over two months previously, WSU's service provider Intellimali erroneously paid a whopping R14-million rand from NSFAS into Mani's account.
During the trial IntelliMali's IT Manager, Stephen Meyer said they had taken full responsibility for the administrative and financial responsibility for the incident and promised that no student's financial aid support would be affected in any way.
They called the incident "unprecedented" in their ten-year history.
Meyer said that they had suffered a huge loss as one of the Universities' NSFAS service providers and that their reputation had been tarnished since the incident, adding that they had also lost one University as a client.
Mani never reported the payment error and went on a spending spree instead.
